Where in the World are You Reading Now? pt 2

So where are you now? Feel free to share a bit about your current book and make sure to include the setting. Happy reading!

My first book for May was set in Iran, during and after the Revolution. It's a book of magic realism called The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar.

Thanks for setting up the new thread!

I've left Norway in La Soif by Jo Nesbø, a Harry Hole mystery, and I'm sharing my time between Canada (Québec) in Un café avec Marie by Serge Bouchard and the Southern States with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a series of short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

I'm in Bulgaria and Vienna seeking a Time Shelter with Georgi Gospodinov.

I'm in a parish in England with George Elio learning about Clerical Life.

I'm back from Southern Rhodesia, today Zimbabwe, in The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing. Whereas most of the novel is set in England, there are key chapters in Africa that are intrinsic to the story, and were really my favourites.

I'm in New Zealand, reading Potiki by Patricia Grace.

I haven't read much this month but have covered some territory: Bulgaria, Iran, NYC, and most recently England with Persuasion and Ireland with Foster.

I am in Thailand, reading about the Thai upper class of the thirties in Les nobles by Dokmai Sot. And I've almost finished The mirror of my Heart, an anthology of Persian poetry by female poets from Iran or countries in the Persian cultural sphere of influence (in what are now Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan...)

Tanzania is in the throes of German colonialism in Afterlives.

I am in Eastern Texas in the throes of the Dustbowl in The Four Winds.

Have Remained in Paris but time-shifted. Was there for my last book earlier this century amongst Ivoirian immigrants with (Standing Heavy by GauZ, but have now shifted back just over a century to the city of Zola and La Curee (The Kill).

I am in Manchester, England, where the Jacobite rebellion is being fomented in Mask of Duplicity by Julia Brannan.

I'm hopping from the US to Sénégal in The Rooster Bar by John Grisham, and from the Dominican Republic to Sweden in Le Guerrier solitaire by Henning Mankell

Currently in Boston awaiting Saturnalia.

I'm touring France, first in Bretagne Sur la dalle, the latest by Fred Vargas, and now in Paris with recent Nobel-prize winner Annie Ernaux in Les Années, which is her autobiography.

I'm in 8th century Gaul. But I believe we will be going to Spain with the Saracen Storm.

Just finished up Enigmas of Spring by Brazilian novelist Joao Almino.

Somewhere in Northern England, I think Yorkshire, to serve the soldiers coffee and donuts. I am an Red Cross Clubmobile girl! Hope this Beantown Girl can make it to the continent!

Am currently in Virginia, USA, reading Demon Copperhead both for a book group, and for my tour of the American states.

I left Oklahoma and the Osage Nation in Killers of the Flower Moon and am now in Egypt with Woman at Point Zero.

I'm just coming back from Monaco in the charming Mémoires d'un tricheur by Sacha Guitry

I have returned to Holland after serving time in Bergen Belsen and try to take up where I left off in my fathers watch shop--biography of Corrie Ten Boom. The Watchmaker's Daughter by C.J. Archer

I seem to have developed Nervous Conditions after travelling in Zimbabwe with Tsitsi Dangarembga.

I am in Prague with Fingers of Rain!

Gave up on Demon Copperhead - very disappointing. Have now travelled across the Atlantic to Ghana, and am reading The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born by Ayi Kwei Armah. A distinct improvement on reading so far!

The Exploding View uncovered some of the racism in South Africa after apartheid had ended, and now I'm in a maternity/fever ward in Ireland during the 1918 pandemic with The Pull of the Stars.

I am in Argentina, where Elena knows, or suspects what happened to her dead daughter.

I'm leaving Japan in Niré by Aki Shimazaki to go to the Galapagos (my first time!) in Wish you were here by Jodi Picoult.

I enjoyed Niré because it is set in Yonago, a port on the Sea of Japan (North East of Hiroshima near the Daisen volcano). It presents a different lifestyle than the usual big city books.

>29 Cecilturtle: I've just wishlisted Niré :-)

I've just left the steppes of Kyrgyzstan (or a fairytale version of them) with Aventures merveilleuses sous terre et ailleurs de Er-Töshtük le géant des steppes and am now in the French-speaking canton of Valais in Switzerland, where Charles Ferdinand Ramuz describes a feud between German and French speakers in La séparation des races.

I stopped off in Malawi to see The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind and then spent some time in This Other Eden on Malaga Island, Maine.

>30 Dilara86: I'm a big fan of Shimazaki: her books can be read in one sitting but they are delicate and full of feeling; it's a style I really enjoy.

I am now in NYC headed for Nice, France in Akin by Emma Donoghue.

Mostly in Great Britian, disrupting a terrorist plot. Disruption: Inside the Largest Counterterrorism Investigation in History

From Ghana to the UK for a book group read: reading Amy-Jane Beer's The Flow, about British rivers.

>35 Willoyd: The Flow won the 2023 Wainwright nature writing prize this week, I'm looking forward to reading it. I'm currently reading one of the other of this year's Wainwright-shortlisted books, Belonging: natural histories of place, identity and home by Amanda Thomson, which I already think is going to be my book of the year.

>36 Jackie_K: Yes, I saw that - one of the prizes I keep an eye on. It's been on my TBR shelf for a while, but it's actually a book group choice, partly because she's doing a talk at a local wildlife festival in October. The Thomson sounds instantly interesting. Im 2/3 the way through The Flow, and it's on already on my book of the year shortlist! Could be an interesting one this year!

I just left a Dayton, Tennessee, courtroom where I watched The Trial of the Century. I, Agnes Grey, am now a governess at Horton Lodge in Yorkshire.

I made a quick stop at the Midnight Library then returned to Guatemala to meet The Polish Boxer.

I'm on the island nation of Nauru, reading a small anthology of writing called Stories from Nauru. Slim, but fascinating. I'll be finished later tonight - it's barely an evening's volume of reading.

I'll be leaving Germany soon, Berlin and Munich, in The Scent of Secrets by Jane Thynne, a historical novel about an aborted plot against Hitler in 1938.

After the Polish Boxer, I travelled to Rwanda to visit Our Lady of the Nile, now I'm in New York City with Bellevue and Philadephia/Washington DC/Kentucky with Horse.

From Nauru, I went to Florida via Their Eyes Were Watching God, then on to a cruise ship travelling from New York to Buenos Aires in Chess Story, before travelling back to the US, in West Virginia this time, where I'm currently reading October Sky. All 3 books proving great reads!

After vising The Gardener of Baghdad I went to England with Elizabeth Gaskell on the Moors (and other places!).

>40 Willoyd: A book from Nauru is quite a find! May I asked how you were able to obtain it?

I'm currently in Samoa with Telesā: The Covenant Keeper by Lani Wendt Young.

This is a fantastical YA book in which a teenage american-samoan girl who was raised in the US comes to visit Samoa to learn about her mother who died when she was very young, and finds that her heritage is far more complicated than she imagined...

>45 chlorine:
I got it through abebooks from a dealer in California. Paid rather a lot for postage to the UK, making it perhaps the most expensive book per page I've ever bought (it's a very slim volume!), but it's rather compensated for by the sheer enjoyment/pleasure in having a book from that country on my shelves! I have to say, the Pacific Island nations has taken some planning and preparation, but I think I'm pretty much there now in terms of sorting out books to read. TBH, a couple of the small European nations (Monaco and Lichtenstein) proved rather more problematic in the end, and I'm having to brush up my language skills a bit to tackle them!

>46 Willoyd: Thanks for your answer and congrats on your progress on Pacific Island nations!

After finishing Bellevue, the history of a hospital in New York City, I travelled to 1917 France with Captaine Rosalie. Now I'm in Palestine and Israel with Apeirogon and Germany/Hungary/Poland with My Brother's Voice.

Now in Paris, in 1862, reading La Curee (The Kill) by Emile Zola. Too early to count for my world tour though, which I've limited to post-1920 books.

>49 Willoyd: La Curée was a good Zola for me, enjoy!
I'm currently in China at the end of the 19th century/beginning of the 20th with Mémoires d'un eunuque dans la cité interdite (Memoirs of a eunuch in the forbidden city).

Time traveling between helping Devlin and Falco who can Trust No One and in Colossae with Paul of Tarsus visiting the Colossians.

I'm travelling the United States with Unsheltered by Barbara Kingslover in New Jersey and Dites-leur que je suis un homme by Ernest J, Gaines in Louisiana.

>50 chlorine:
About half way through and loving it! Although not part of my world tour, I am working my way through the Rougon-Macquart sequence, using the new Oxford World Classics translations, my French not good enough to appreciate and enjoy them (focusing those efforts on Maigret!). BTW, my French choice currently a toss-up between Life, A User's Manual and The Mandarins (partly because I have copies that I've been intending to read for a while!).

>53 Willoyd: I'm also reading (slowly) my way through the Rougon-Macquart series, in the recommended reading order listed on the wikipedia page. The next one for me will be Une page d'amour.

>54 chlorine:
That's the order I'm reading them in as well. As you will know, La Curee is only the third on the list, so early days, but have read both Au Bonheur des Dames and La Bete Humaine previously - I will read them again when I get there in the sequence. All been excellent (particularly enjoyed ABdD), and this is one of the best yet. (Yet to work out how to insert accented letters!).

I started an Early Reviewer book I received last week called Half a Cup of Sand and Sky. So far it's excellent. It's set in Tehran during the Iranian Revolution.

I’m in France looking for my beau in A Very Long Engagement.

>57 varielle:
Loved that book, even on reread.

>55 Willoyd: Au bonheur des dames is very famous among the Rougon-Macquart and one of the few that ends well.
My reading order is a bit of a mess as I started reading them in publication order the switched to the recommended order. Also I read a few when I was in high-school, but will re-read them (and I'm looking forward to it). My favorite from that time were Nana and L'assomoir.

I've been to war-torn Poland in Ces enfants d'ailleurs (spans 1938-1950) by Arlette Cousture and Canada where the remaining family immigrates. Cousture is known for her sagas: very plot focused with superficial character development but the writing is solid. I'm enjoying this first tome, but not enough to read to read the second which will follow the characters in Manitoba and Québec.

Just finished a visit to Nevada (as part of my tour of the United States) with Walter Van Tilburg Clark's The Ox-Bow Incident. Far, far better than expected!

I spent some time in Australia with Five Bells and am now in Kenya with The House of Rust.

I'm in Algeria reading Meursault, contre-enquête by Kamel Daoud which is an answer to Camus' L'étranger (The stranger) but I'm struggling to make sense of it.

Currently coming to the end of a trip to Pakistan, reading Jamil Ahmad's The Wandering Falcon, mostly set in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

>64 Willoyd: Although it was clear that the author wasn't a professional writer, I loved this one.

>65 labfs39:
Yes, so did I: there's a clariy of writing, and an empathy with what and who he's writing about that I found addictive. It left me wanting more, which is unusual in a novel (even one told in short stories, like this).

I started Ten Years of the Caine Prize for African Writing with "The Ultimate Safari" by Nadine Gordimer, a South African Nobel Laureate. This story was set in Mozambique.

I'm up in Scotland in When Will There be Good News by Kate Atkinson. It's quite morbid (as the title implies) but the writing is wry so it makes the story bearable. It's fun to see how all the bits of plot are coming together.

In the midst of Oxfordshire, England at the turn of the 19th/20th century: The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams.

>69 Willoyd: That's my book club selection for December. I hope it's a good one.

>70 labfs39:
I'm actually really enjoying it - about one-third way through. Not great 'literature' (but it's not designed to be), but a well-told story, and I love the premise. Indeed, it's worming its way nicely under my skin.

I've just left a small village in Iceland in Sigló by Ragnar Jónasson to land in 18th century in South Korea The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble.

I read State of Emergency by Jeremy Tiang. Excellent novel following a family from 1940s to the present in Singapore and Malaysia.

Still in Oxford, as now reading Sarah Ogilvie's The Dictionary People as a factual follow-up to The Dictionary Of Lost Words. Popping over to Belgium every now and again as also reading Bart Van Loo's The Burgundians - really interesting.

I'm now in England bound for New South Wales aboard The Floating Brothel.

I am in Ancient Greece, Song for Achilles but longing for more modern times. I’m interrupting it for short trips to modern America and France with Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, preferring jeans to tunics.plus other modern amenities.

After a quick jaunt through Oxford, England with Dictionary of Lost Words, I'm in Senegal reading So Long a Letter.

I'm reading an international YA thriller, La Conspiration by Maggie Hall. So far, I've been to the USA, France and Turkey. I suspect I'll be whisked to a bunch of other countries before the 400 pages are up. We'll see where I land.

I stayed in Senegal for a second book, the excellent, but brutal, At Night All Blood is Black.

I started the new year in Japan's Old Capital, Kyoto, and am now in WWII Germany anxiously reading The Seventh Cross. When it gets too much, I switch to a schooner in the Atlantic with the old sailor, Peter Duck.

I'm in Louisiana with The Feast of All Saints by Anne Rice; once you get past the stylistic flourishes, it's actually quite an interesting piece of historical fiction about the mixed-raced French nobles, right after the Louisiana Purchase.

I've also started the les contes des mille et une nuit (One Thousand Nights), volume 1 anyway, which I'll slowly be reading throughout the year. This will have me travelling throughout the orient, from the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, Iran and to the borders of India. So far I'm loving the mix of prose and poetry and very colourful, magical stories.

I’m back in Germany after a 55 year stopover in the US. Somehow I keep going back to Germany, a country I had avoided in my travel years. Now I’m back with Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch. It a fun read.

Chekhov just moved from his hometown of Taganrog to Moscow and is starting to make a name for himself as a humorist in this engaging biography.

After witnessing Changes in Ghana, I am now with Beka Lamb in Belize.

>82 kjuliff: Now I’m back with Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch.
I read this, then read Ulinka Rublack's book The Astronomer and the Witch, upon which this is based. Found the latter fascinating - a really good read.

I am in Kyrgyzstan, saying Farewell Gulsary.

While visiting a barge-bookstore (so cool!) in Paris, I discovered a publishing house called Histoires jamais entendues. They are all short stories written by an author from his/her country as if she or he had overheard the story in a pub/tea house/sake bar, etc. So far there are 5 countries published: Japan and Nepal which I am currently reading; I also have Ireland, Spain and Brazil. There another 12 countries planned from Canada, to Russia and the Canary Islands.

Histoires jamais entendues dans un sushi bar au Japon by Masayo Kokonoke
Histoires jamais entendues dans une maison de thé du Népal by Sherpa Yeh Peh

>87 Cecilturtle: These sound so interesting. I wish they were also available in English translation. I'm not sure my French is up to it. I guess I could try one...

>88 labfs39: They are short, less than 200 pages, and each story only a few pages long. If you speak French it may be a good way to practice :)

I'm currently at the birth of the Soviet Union, in Ten Days that Shook the World.

Although I'm still meandering through Chekhov's Russian short stories, I am now also in Greece with Patroclus in The Song of Achilles.

>91 labfs39: I’m in Paris in 1941 seeing the bourgeoisie writ large.

I'm in the middle of a literal bloodbath right now, whilst three are battling for control of of a temple site, that will become known as Stonehenge.

I have finished Maximum City Bombay Lost and Found by Suketu Mehta which I really recommend. Mehta does a fantastic job of describing the streets, layers and multitudes of Bombay.

I’ve gone to Mars. It’s a refreshing change. Lots of misogynists and sexists. A spaceship called “Woke” is on its way so we may repent. Yes even the blacks and the women. We await their arrival in two years time. Meanwhile we are living it up, experimenting with time. If we can’t change, may be we can change time.

I'm awaiting Death in Rome.

After leaving Greece, I went to an extragalactic moon with Murderbot; then to Hidden Valley Road, Colorado; to Palestine obsessed with a Minor Detail; and finally from England to the Caribbean on a schooner with Peter Duck. Now I'm off to Africa to search for the source of the Nile, River of the Gods.

After seeking Death in Rome, I am learning that death is a Human Matter in Guatemala.

I am touring Japan looking for Le roi des gyozas (The king of gyozas) but I might leave early as it is not grabbing me, and just stay in New Zealand with Remember me : Poems to Learn by Heart from Aotearoa New-Zealand. I am also paying short, occasional visits to Afghanistan with an anthology called A thousand Golden Cities, which I dip in in between novels.

I've just come back from a moving experience in L'Énigme du retour by Dany Laferrière where I toured the Haitian countryside.

>98 ELiz_M: On my way to East Africa, I made a quick detour to the Morisaki Bookshop in Japan.

I’m in the Netherlands in The Discomfort of Evening

I spent some time with Man in Montreal, with flashbacks to Vietnam.

I spent a lovely time in Kazakhstan with The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years and now I'm headed to Hanoi in My Vietnam, Your Vietnam.

I'm in a Chinese reeducation camp eating Grass Soup.

I'm listening to the Confessions of a Mask in Japan.

I'm in Haiti during the 2010 earthquake with What Storm, What Thunder by Myriam Chancy - very powerful and beautifully written. I enjoy the Creole and French peppered in.

I also travelled between France and Japan in Suite inoubliable by the Japanese writer Akira Mizubayashi who writes in French. It's a story about 3 generations, from World War II to the present, united by a cello and a love of Bach. I really wanted to like the story but I found the character development lacking.

After Grass Soup I read two more memoirs of 1960s China: Red Scarf Girl and Feather in the Storm. I'm now reading the experimental novel based on the author's experiences as an "educated youth" sent down to the hinterlands during the Cultural Revolution called A Dictionary of Maqiao.

I've already more than completed the Romania leg of this challenge, but I am back there (my happy place) reading Dan Perjovschi: The Horizontal Newspaper by Gloria Luca, about an evolving artwork on a large public wall in the city of Sibiu.

I interrupted my reading about China with Apeirogon, a novel based on the true stories of a Palestinian and an Israeli, both of whom lost a daughter to violence. Then I read A Faraway Island, a YA novel about two sisters who are refugees in Sweden during the Holocaust.

I finished Half of Man is Woman, a Chinese novel set in the hinterlands during the Cultural Revolution, and am now reading the second book in the Faraway Island series, set in Sweden during WWII.

Gosh, it's been a while since I posted. I finished all four of the Faraway Island books (Sweden); read Eastbound, set on the Trans-Siberian Railroad; Bitter Herbs, a memoir of the Holocaust in the Netherlands; Village School, a bucolic English novel from the 1950s; The Book Censor's Library by a Kuwaiti author; and The Door by Hungarian author, Magda Szabó. Next, I think I'll head back to China.

I've just left Kenya, in the marvellous company of One Day I Will Write About This Place by Binyavanga Wainaina, and I'm just about to spend some time in Communist Romania, reading Burying the Typewriter by Carmen Bugan.

I've been in Canada on The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland, then Kent, England in The Comfort of Ghosts, and am now reading Wild Swans, a memoir of three generations of women in China.

I'm reading In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, book 2 of Marcel Proust's famous In Search of Lost Time extravaganza. So. . . France.

>114 labfs39: How did you like the 9/11 book? I saw the musical Far and Away and although I'm really not a fan of musicals, I just loved it. This sounds like the book version, both gut-wrenching and heart-warming.

>116 Cecilturtle: I couldn't put it down and read it in one evening. So nice to read about people pulling together and doing good. Plus I found the logistics fascinating. Who knew that the first problem they would need to solve was nicotine withdrawal on the parked planes? I have since bought a copy and am circulating it amongst my friends and relations.

>117 labfs39: uh oh - sounds like another book got on my TBR pile - lol

>118 Cecilturtle: Always happy to help!

I've been spending most of my time in the United States and Canada, but have finally taken the plane over to Europe in the USSR with A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, just after the Revolution, and in Austria with Thérèse by Arthur Schnitzler. Both are promising reads.

When I left Newfoundland, I went to England in The Company of Ghosts, then to China to see Wild Swans, followed by a visit to Annie John in Antigua, and I'm now in the Netherlands reading about The Assault.

I did a bit of globetrotting with Killers of a Certain Age and am now in Belgium and England with The White Lady.

I've just finished Lauren Elkin's Flaneuse, which takes in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London. I'm not going to count it for this challenge, but I did enjoy the literary travels very much.

I've travelled to the destroyed jungle of Vietnam during the war in Em by Kim Thúy and to the Square Cabot where the homeless Indigenous people of Tiohtiáke (Montréal) meet.
I am currently in Nakuru, Kenya in One Day I will Write About this Place by Binyavanga Wainaina.

>124 Cecilturtle: I loved Em.

I started reading Narrow Road to the Deep North, set in Burma, but switched to the suspense novel, A Death in Vienna set in Vienna, Rome, and Argentina.

>125 labfs39: So did I - Thúy is an incredible writer.

>124 Cecilturtle: Oh I really hope you like One Day I Will Write About This Place! I thought it was amazing.

>127 Jackie_K: I did - the writing is just phenomenal! His imagery is so engaging. I also liked how his consciousness grew from a child to an adult. I did learn more about Kenya's modern history. I did slog a bit through the end, though: it was almost as if Wainaina didn't really know how to end things. Overall I'm very happy to have read it!

Currently in Poland near the Czech border, with Olga Tokarczuck's Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead.

I won't count this towards my challenge, but I am currently listening to The Early Years Collection by David Attenborough in which he describes his travels to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Australia's Northern Territory in the 1950s and 1960s. It is fascinating and very humorous, if a little lengthy at times. I am now listening to the last part, which is a collection of interviews that include further anecdotes of the author's early trips.

Goodness, it's been a while since I updated. I finished July in Germany, Palestine, England, and the US with They Were Good Germans Once, in Germany with Salt to the Sea, and in the US and Germany with Letting It Go. In August I have been in the US, but also China with 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows, England with God on the Rocks, and now Ireland with Little Red Chairs. I'm also listening to Covenant of Water which takes place mainly in India.

Currently at home in the UK, following Christopher Somerville Walking the Bones of Britain - some fascinating insights. Since Poland have travelled down the Rhine with Mathijs Deen (The Boundless River), to Kuwait in The Book Censor's Library, and back to the old East Germany in Kairos, interspersed with other home visits.

I'm travelling the Western world in Musiques de scènes, a series of short stories by Françoise Sagan and connecting with Indigenous culture in Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Now moved on to Ireland, Dublin to be precise, reading Ulysses.

I'm in France seeking The Fortune of the Rougons.

I'm currently sailing across the ocean and experiencing a horrible Typhoon!

I'm back from Malaysia and England with Old Filth by Jane Gardam.

What secrets of the Spanish Civil War are hidden in the Fountains of Silence?

I finished Paracuellos : children of the defeated in Franco's fascist Spain, a series of autobiographical graphic works by Carlos Giménez (my first book for Spain), and am now in Albania with Kadare's Broken April.

I'm in Spain with Histoires jamais entendues dans une auberge en Espagne, leading the foreign service life with Psychopompe (so far, Japan, China and seem to be settling in Bangladesh), and travelling to Libya after a hop in Italy with The Exchange.

Red Sea: A Raid on the Red Sea.

I just took part in the meetings of The Wartime Book Club on Jersey!

(I will not add this novel to my thread here, but I recommend it to anyone who likes historical fiction and is interested in the German occupation of Jersey. The research was very well done and there is a long appendix with further information, pictures, original letters and so on. The author decided to focus on the topic of resistance, not collaboration, and the stories she found are so fascinating and humbling. I have yet to write the review in my main thread.)

After a lengthy sojourn in Kerala, India pondering The Covenant of Water, I've journeyed to Croatia with Mama Leone.

Beneath of Sands of Egypt by Donald Ryan is an accessible and interesting memoir on his career as an archaeologist. Although the focus is on Egyptian tombs, he mentions some of the work that he did worldwide, from Hawaii to the Canari Islands.
Ryan is passionate about his work but also doesn't sugarcoat the physical hardships, minutiae and academic rigour - it requires a real mixed bag of very different skills!

I am in Latvia with Les Chiens de Riga by Henning Mankell, a Kurt Wallander mystery. The story is set in the early 1990s and does a great job of describing Riga post-USSR. All the trappings of communism are still there even as Latvians try to reclaim their identity. It is a dark and gripping tale.

Goodness, it's been a while since I posted here. Let's see, in December I was mostly in North America, but I did visit Palestine with Journal of an Ordinary Grief by Mahmoud Darwish and revisited Anxious People in Sweden. So far this year, I've been to the Pacific Northwest with Remarkably Bright Creatures, Paris and London with The Paris Assignment, Nigeria with The Girl with the Louding Voice, China with Journey to the Heartland, Jamaica with How to Say Babylon, and The Hague with Intimacies. I am now in Paris with His Excellency Eugene Rougon.

Like >146 labfs39:, it's been a while since I posted here. Currently in Delaware, with West of Rehoboth, on my Tour of the USA.

Now seeking a Haven off the coast of Ireland. Have you heard the one about three monks in a boat?

I'm in St Petersburg commiserating with the man commonly called The Idiot.

I'm on a reading journey to Sri Lanka, reading The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka

In Africa. Dictatorland by Paul Kenyon

I spent some time on a Jewish street in the East End of London with A Kid for Two Farthings, and then learned that Barbara Isn't Dying in Germany.

I'm escaping Vietnam with Anh, Mingh and Tanh in Wandering Souls by Cécile Pin. So far they have left their Central-Vietnam town and landed first in a refugee camp in Hong Kong and now England where they hope to find a home.

I'm in the Low Countries, in medieval Burgundy and Flanders with Bart van Loo's The Burgundians. 80 pages in and looking good!

The Barroy Island in Norway is the setting for The Unseen.

I'm trotting around Japan and Australia in Un jeudi, saveur chocolat by Michiko Aoyama, part of a series of intimate stories where are the characters are related but without necessarily knowing so. It's very much a 6 degrees of separation game and it's interesting the way the novel weaves in and out of characters.

After spending time in Lithuania then a Siberian gulag in Between Shades of Gray, I am now in Paris for The Kill.

All over. The Black Book of Communism - Stephane Courtois

Mostly I've been in England with Jane Austen's novels, but I also managed to witness The Painted Bird in Poland and see the White Shadow cast by the Eyes of the Rigel in Norway.

Currently in Cuba with Havana Year Zero, another excellent Charco Press read.

I spent some time in Cambodia during the 1975 Year of the Rabbit.

I'm in New Zealand looking for The Colour.

I'm in Canada -- Prince George, BC with Fireweed by Laurel Haddad and Quebec with The Harmattan Winds by Sylvain Trudel.

I just left No Home for Killers cause ain't nobody wanna be there! I'm currently delivering a royal message to the Puritans from King Charles I. They are not real happy to be receiving it. Meanwhile, I've taken a fancy to Widow Cotton who has a missing child taken by the Nipmuk tribe during King Philip’s war. The Nipmuk's are currently living at Crow Hollow.

I've joined Memed, My Hawk and his brigand band in the mountains off the Aegean Coast.

>165 labfs39:
Ooh. Will be interested in what you make of that. I read Elif Shafak's 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World as my book for Turkey, but was disappointed with it, so am looking for a replacement - it's on my TBR.

I've now moved to Romania from Cuba, in the midst of The Great Fortune, the first volume in Olivia Manning's Balkan Trilogy. Am thoroughly enjoying it, but not yet quite sure why it's regarded as such a classic. Yakimov is thoroughly irritating.

>166 Willoyd: I'm 2/3 of the way through and really enjoying Memed, My Hawk. It's a sort of coming of age, Robin Hood, brigand story. It's written in a simple style with lots of detailed descriptions of place.

>167 labfs39: Sounds promising. Thank you.

Just finished The Great Fortune. Not certain where going next fiction wise. Probably staying with the Pringles in Romania (whilst they are there!), but have a couple of book group reads to get through before next week as well. Non-fiction wise, am reading Lucy Mangan's Bookwise, which takes me nowhere except into the books themselves!

Cruising the Greater Middle East with Robert D. Kaplan in Loom of Time.

Briefly visited Australia, reading Stone Yard Devotional, which I consumed in a day. And then to Tokyo for a book group read with We'll Prescribe You a Cat, perhaps one of the worst books I've ever read - the contrast with SYD, not a favourite but outstandingly written, was horribly stark. It's only saving grace was that it was short.

I'm in Rwanda where All Your Children, Scattered.

In South Dakota Badlands in the early 20th century, with The Personal History of Rachel DuPree.

In occupied Europe during World War 2, with resistance forces in Resistance! by D. A. Lande

Edit: misspelled name

I spent some time in Vietnam with The Women and am now in South Korea, as Miss Kim Knows.

I read my second book from Argentina: Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro.

I am in the Caribbean island nation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines bracing for the impact of A Different Hurricane.

>175 labfs39:
Loved it! Have A Little Luck lined up for this month's book club read.

Now moved from the Badlands of South Dakota to the Ozark mountains in northern Arkansas, with Donald Harington's The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks, an excellent read, although a little bit bogged down at present.

I finished The Cold Crematorium, the Holocaust memoir of an Hungarian journalist.

Spending time in Romania with Children of the Night by Paul Kenyon

Edit: Tried fixing the touchstone for the title, but no luck.

Moved from Arkansas (book ultimately a bit disappointing) to Buenos Aires with A Little Luck by Claudio Pineiro. Just finished - a superb, gripping, read, nailed on 6 stars. This is the second Pineiro I've read (Elena Knows being the other), and they've both been brilliant. Now moved back to the UK with Lucy Mangan's Bookish.

I'm in Zimbabwe, near its border with Mozambique, in The Book of Not by Tsitsi Dangarembga and in Cairo with Olivia Manning's The Levant Trilogy. Both are fantastic.

Finished going into the jungle of Honduras with The Codex by Douglas Preston.

From a mildly disappointing Bookish (UK) to the Bangladesh of the early 70s with Tahmima Anam's A Golden Age, alongside a (non-fiction) tour of European national borders with Lewis Baston's Borderlines.

>183 Willoyd: I read and enjoyed A Golden Age several years back. Looking forward to learning how (or whether) you like it.

>184 rocketjk:
Finished it a couple of days ago, and moved on to the East Germany of the 1980s with Deborah Levy's The Man Who Saw Everything. As to A Golden Age itself, I really enjoyed it, certainly enough to order the sequel The Good Muslim from my local bookshop! It's a period of recent history about which I am very ignorant: I was only 13 at the time of the war that led to Bangladesh independence, and was really only aware of the change of name from East Pakistan. This really opened my eyes, although anything but grim, even if it punches aren't pulled. Gave it 4 (almost 5) out of 6 stars. I'll do a fuller review on my blog thread soon.

I've been lax in recording my journey. First, I was in Japan searching for The Village in the Mist, but only found the Russian Genius Under the Table. Then the Children of the Resistance in France told me I needed to visit The Young Bride, who had just returned to her fiancé's house in Italy. The Women, Seated on the train next to me, told me to visit them in China instead, but it was All for Nothing for the train was rerouted to Germany.

>186 labfs39:
You're not the only one! Have largely spent time in North West Europe, split between the UK, Germany and France the past month, but am now fairly deeply buried in Vermont, reading The Secret History both for one of my book groups and for my Tour of the US.

I'm in an Indian community in Peru marveling at how Broad and Alien Is the World.

I'm in Madrid with Only Smoke by Juan José Millás, and also in Japan with Strange Houses by Uketsu.

Back to World War 2 with MI 9 by Helen Fry.

From Vermont back to Europe: Borderlines; a History of Europe in 29 Borders by Lewis Baston. Fascinating stuff, particularly the Belgian enclaves (or exclaves) in the Netherlands. I never knew that!

It was so lonely after being marooned on an Isola in the Gulf of St. Lawrence that I longed for the family back on Western Lane in England. Everyone was grief-stricken there, so I visited my friend Maggie who was also struggling, endlessly chanting I Am, I Am, I Am. I need a more cheerful book!

Fiction-wise, I've moved to Dorset, with the Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn. Started well! In non-fiction, I'm very specifically in Mecklenberg Square in London with Francesca Wade's Square Haunting. Currently reading the Hilda Dolittle chapter, and its excellent!

>192 labfs39: I need a more cheerful book!
And I didn't find it in The Vegetarian, a dismal prospect in South Korea.

>194 labfs39:
I disliked that book with a passion! 1 star.

In Sudan, rescuing Ethiopian Jews in Red Sea Spies by Raffi Berg

In the midst of the Arctic winter night on the island of Spitsbergen with Christiane Ritter in A Woman in the Polar Night. Fairly mind-blowing!

In Vietnam with army intelligence in Vietnam Was Boring by Ronald Griffith.

I am in Rodosto, or Tekirdağ as it is known today. This port city is on the Marmara Sea, in the European part of Turkey, or Somewhere in the Balkans, if you will.

I'm in the SW Pacific with the Alamo Scouts. Shadows in the Jungle by Larry Alexander.

Venice: Tracey Chevalier's The Glassmaker

I'm in the Netherlands on a long sojourn with The Remembered Soldier.

I am in Nicaragua, getting to know The Inhabited Woman.

I'm back from a Mexican haunted house in Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. I'm also fighting climate change in Germany although Et la terre se vengera un jour by JM Simmel and am seeking More Joy in Heaven in Toronto, Canada.

I'm in Amsterdam with The Hairdresser's Son by Gerbrand Bakker and in the Antarctic with Quan Barry's The Unveiling

Only the Light Move by Francis Doherty has me in Laos, Cambodia and South Vietnam.

In the US, Africa, India and Australia with Jeremy Seal in The Snakebite Survivors Club.

I'm in Quebec, specifically La Chambre 1002 by Chrystine Brouillet, tasting Hélène's award-winning food. I'm also with Harry Bosch rifling through The Black Box by Connelly in California.

I'm in northern China, on the Mongolian border, exploring the intersection of herder and wolf, the Cultural Revolution, and a clash of cultures in Wolf Totem.

I am in Vienna, in The world of Yesterday.

Wine Journey: An Israeli Adventure
Itamar Gur, Guy Haran, Roni Saslove, David Silverman
I won from LT. Just got back from a trip to Europe yesterday and started it.

I find myself here in this timeless valley where the Sarrasti once walked, where the very stones seem to whisper their ancient language. The volcanic soil beneath my feet—the same that would one day preserve Pompeii in its tragic amber—connects me to layers of history that few places on earth can claim.
In this moment, I am reading beneath the Mediterranean sun that has illuminated these lands for millennia. The cypress trees cast their familiar shadows as they did when Latin was still a living tongue on Roman lips, when Greek colonists first brought their scrolls to these shores. The air itself seems thick with linguistic memory.
From this vantage point, with Vesuvius brooding in the distance, I can almost hear the echoes of the Oscan language that the Sarrasti spoke—that pre-Roman tongue that left its traces in inscriptions and place names. How fascinating to think that beneath the later Latin overlay, these earlier voices persist in the very toponymy of the landscape around me.
Here, surrounded by the archaeological palimpsest of Southern Italy, every text I read takes on deeper resonance. Whether it's Pliny's letters describing the great eruption, or medieval chronicles of this region, or even modern Italian literature that grows from this soil—all of it seems to speak with the accumulated voice of centuries.
This valley has seen Oscans, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Normans, and countless others pass through, each leaving their linguistic sediment. As I turn these pages in the gentle warmth of the Campanian afternoon, I am but the latest reader in an unbroken chain stretching back to antiquity itself.

Vesuvius: a Biography

I'm making The Last Crossing (Guy Vanderhaeghe) from Montana to Saskatchewan while learning about, and laughing at, dating practices around the world in Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari.

Lion Hearts by Dan Jones Third book in the Essex Dogs Trilogy. Great series. Set in South Eastern England in 1350 during the Plague. Touchstones are acting wonky....

I'm hanging out with Gorbachev in the former Soviet Union in Gorbachev Heretic in the Kremlin by Dusko Doder

I spent some time in Tokyo with the Convenience Store Woman.

I'm at The Lighthouse (PD James) in Northanger Abby (Jane Austen) for a British tour in Cornwall and Gloucestershire, respectively.

I'm in Paris trying to scrounge up enough Money to speculate on the Bourse.

In North Korea. Kim Il-song's North Korea by Helen-Louise Hunter

I'm back from searching Owls of the Eastern Ice (Jonathan Slaght) in the far removed Russian province of Primorye and off to learn more about Italian Ways (Tim Parks).

I found More Joy in Heaven (Morely Callaghan) somewhere in Canada and I'm off to meet The Water-Babies (Charles Kinglsey) presumably somewhere underwater!

I'm currently in Ferrara with Sarah Dunant's Sacred Hearts, following on from Giorgio Bassani 's Within the Walls, set in the same city, even if 400 years apart. Guess where I've just been on holiday!

The Dream I had last night took place in the shadow of a French cathedral and was populated by Christian martyrs.

I counted off One by One (Ruth Ware) the victims after an avalanche in Savoie and I'm feeling some Solar (Ian McEwan) heat in Norway as scientists and artists explore ways to mitigate climate change.

Cruising the world's oceans with Ian Urbina in The Outlaw Ocean.

The Shadow of the Wind is sweeping across Barcelona, uncovering hidden agendas, unsavory characters, and disturbing glimpses of history.

I suspect I'll be all over the world, looking for rare earth metals in Rare by Keith Veronese.

Edit: This was not a good book. I wasn't able to finish it.

I'm back from enjoying Green Grass, Running Water (Thomas King) in Alberta, Canada. I've also met The Keeper of Lost Causes (Jussi Adler-Olsen) in Copenhagen.

In Soviet arctic waters during the Cold War. Emergency Deep by Alfred McLaren.

I'm in California learning Lessons in Chemistry with Bonnie Garmus.

I'm still commuting to 16th century Ferrara via Sacred Hearts, but am returning fairly regularly to the UK, just (!) north of here (Wharfedale) to the Eden Valley with Sarah Hall's Helm. Very unusual to be doing this, as I normally prefer to stay put until the visit is properly completed, but having picked the latter up to browse, I couldn't leave it alone. Absolutely loving both books, which have restored my reading mojo after a string of generally disappointing (or, at least depressing) Booker reads.

I'm investigating a Mort à la Fenice (Murder at the Fenice) in Venise and hanging out in New York with an American Psycho whom I hope will be eaten by The Grey Wolf from Montréal.

Standing on lines in the sand in A Red Line in the Sand by David Andelman.

Moved on from the north of England, and am now in Indonesia, with Man Tiger by Eka Kurniawan.

Whoops. Wrong thread...

Ingrid Barroy may be thought of as Just a Mother, but that hardly encompasses the many roles she holds as head of the Barroy islanders.

Solito, or All by Myself, is a good name for a memoir about a nine-year-old boy migrating alone from El Salvador to his parents in the US.

Still on an Italian trip. I was in Florence and Sicily looking for a flower that doesn't bloom (Une fleur qui ne fleurit pas), and am now in Venice with The Devil in Love.

I'm in a Whiteout in Scotland and a snowstorm in Massachusetts for The Last Noel. Luckily I've also enjoyed a bit sunshine traveling in Italy in the Italian Ways.

In Algeria, just transferring from L'Etranger to The Meursault Investigation. Temperature is rising!

I'm in the deep American South, specifically Ford County Mississippi and Where the Crawdads Sing in North Carolina.

Who would have thought that The Conquest of the Plassans would be effected by a French priest? My money was on the Rougons.

I'm in Tel Aviv Noir (edited by Etgar Keret and Assaf Gavron) and chasing the Alperton Angels in North London.